Deleted member 254248
D
I was out fighting Thargoid scouts in threat level 4 Non-Human Signal Sources in Asterope when I received the message in game that I had reached combat level Deadly. I killed the last two scouts in the group and knew I was now embarking on the dreaded combat grind from Deadly to Elite. That’s when I went to the Wiki and read about the rank progression.
Reading the Wiki you are directed to several sources for information. I always prefer to get my information directly from the source rather than just taking the Wiki for granted so I read the forum posts that were linked, and I read the information gathered by CMDR Remy Marten about his kills while Deadly rank. I came across some very interesting information there but found some if to be very incomplete, based on small sample sizes, or just missing. That’s when I decided to document my journey from Deadly to Elite and then analyze my results afterward.
WARNING: There will be math in this.
TL;DR: The Wiki is both correct and incorrect, Thargoid scouts don’t have a normal combat rank, and the combat grind to Elite is a little shorter than the Wiki says.
Wiki Page Information
elite-dangerous.fandom.com
The first piece of information gathered from the Wiki is the table outlining the progression points given for each kill based on the relative ranks of the pilot and the target. This table is supposedly linked to a Dev Post by Brett on July 31, 2015. He attached an image to this post which is unfortunately no longer available, but my assumption is that the table came directly from his image and is correct when dealing with my particular situation.
forums.frontier.co.uk
The caveat to my above statement about the table is the statement in the Odyssey release notes that every kill will garner some amount of progression points, regardless of relative rank. This a doesn't affect my situation since I was killing only one type of enemy without a rank, but it can affect future data sets compiled by other experiments.
forums.frontier.co.uk
The next piece of information is that Thargoid scouts are not combat rank Elite. This is linked to a post by Bruce G on December 8, 2020 where he says that scouts will no longer be worth as many progression points as they were previously. It’s important to note that in further posts in the thread he directly refuses to tell us how much less they will be worth. This means we do not know how much the progression got nerfed, and anyone saying “scouts are Dangerous rank” is just speculating.
forums.frontier.co.uk
The last piece of information comes from a linked spreadsheet by CMDR Remy Monsen which has some recorded data concerning some of his kills during his progression, and here’s where we’re going to focus for a bit. Let’s look at some information contained in his data before we get more into it later.
onedrive.live.com
First, he states that there is a delay between the time he makes a kill and the time when the displayed percentage is updated in the right panel. Next, his data is confined to a range of ten percentage point increases from 15% to 24% Deadly. Next, the spreadsheet is using the AVERAGE function to normalize the individual kills across that ten percentage point range. Last, the spreadsheet uses that averaged data to do one multiplication calculation to come up with the final numbers about the total experience required to progress from 0% Deadly to Elite.
We will come back to CMDR Monsen’s data later, and plug it into the results I have obtained and you will see a much more accurate interpretation of his data and how it fits in with mine.
Data Gathering Method
I killed only Thargoid scouts during the entire progression from 0% Deadly to Elite. No other kills of any type were performed. There was a time when I went into a threat level 5 Non-Human Signal Source and killed a group of eight scouts which included four Marauder, two Regenerator and two Berserker variants, but aside from that, all of the kills were Marauder variant scouts. I mention this because there is a possibility that either Berserkers, or Regenerators, or both may still be a higher combat rank than Marauders, and this may affect my numbers. This is doubtful, but I have to acknowledge the possibility.
From 0% to 60% I took screenshots of my right panel and left panel only intermittently. From 60% on, I took screenshots every time I increased a percentage point. Almost all of the bounty totals listed are immediately after the percentage point increased. There are a few in there where I forgot where I was in my count and missed the exact increase. That will be explained later.
I played the entire run on Xbox Series X, in Horizons obviously. I only mention this because CMDR Monsen mentioned a delay in updating the percentage on his right panel, and that does not exist on Xbox. I have multiple video recordings where I can reduce a scout to 0% health and when the death sound starts, I can open the right panel fast enough to actually watch the percentage point increase right after the explosion sound and the bounty is awarded. If there actually is a delay in updating the percentage on PC and/or Playstation, and there isn’t on Xbox, this opens up a whole new set of discussions about how the platforms communicate to the servers based on what each platform controls inside each instance, which is for another post.
Raw Data
docs.google.com
Data Analysis
The very first thing to realize when analyzing the data is that we do not know what the combat rank of any Thargoid is. There is nothing relating to this that is displayed by any scan that can be executed on a Thargoid, and as far as I know no Developer has ever stated exactly where Thargoids fall, quite the opposite in fact. This means we can only go so far with our data before we have to compare it to an outside source.
The next thing to realize is that the game displays a whole percentage number, and we have no idea how it rounds that number. It could be using an INT function where it discards all numbers after the decimal place and only displays the base percentage until it rolls over to the next higher percentage, or it could be rounding it up or down around a certain decimal place. We don’t know at the start.
Looking at the data we can start explaining the spreadsheet.
Displayed Percentage is obvious, that is what was displayed in the right panel in my screenshots.
Displayed Bounties is also obvious, that is the credit amount displayed in my left panel in my screenshots.
Total Bounties is the displayed bounties plus 160,000 credits for the two additional scouts I killed after I received the message that I had reached 0% Deadly in-game. I know this is accurate because I have video of me reaching Elite and getting the message displayed about Elite level as soon as the percentage ticked up to 100%, so I know there is no delay between getting the kill for 0% Deadly and getting the message saying I had progressed from Dangerous to Deadly.
Scout Kills is the total bounty number divided by the reward for each scout kill, which is always 80,000 credits, regardless of type. This allowed me to keep an exact count of scout kills during the progression.
Bounty Difference and Kill Difference are the difference in kills and bounties from the last entry to the current entry.
Actual Percentage is the scout kills divided by the total number of scout kills needed to progress to Elite.
Total Scout Kills -1 and Percentage Before Kill are a check calculation. As I mentioned, for a lot of the percentages at 60% and above, the number of Total Kills is immediately after the percentage changed, so knowing what the actual percentage was before it changed can help us figure out the rounding the game does to get to the displayed percentage.
The next four sections of the spreadsheet are running calculations based on assuming a combat rank for the Thargoid scouts, running a calculation to see how many NPC kills at Deadly rank this would be, rounding that to a whole number and then calculating that back down to scout kills and seeing how well that number matches with my actual number. Red numbers are calculated scout kills that do not match mine. The lower the number of divergences, the better our assumption is about what rank the scouts are.
Assumed Scout Level Multiplier is the number that my kills would get multiplied by to calculate progression points if the scout were that combat rank.
Equivalent Deadly Kills is how many Deadly rank ships would have to be killed to equal the number of scout kills I had at that level.
Equivalent Rounded Up is the equivalent Deadly kills rounded up to the nearest whole number. This is because you can’t kill a partial ship.
Equivalent Scout Kills is taking the rounded Deadly ship kill number and turning it back into a number of scout kills, rounded down, because again, you can’t kill a partial scout. The fewer number of divergences from the scout kill number is better.
Equivalent Percentage is taking the equivalent number of scout kills and dividing it by the total number of equivalent scout kills to get a percentage. It will differ from the actual percentage number because of the rounding up and down that the game does when it converts from kills to progression points.
Assumed Scout Level Between is a multiplier picked so as to place each scout somewhere between Dangerous and Deadly equivalent combat rank. This will become clearer when running the calculations around CMDR Monsen’s data.
The next section is a copy of CMDR Remy Monsen’s data, converted into my naming conventions. The first area is self-explanatory.
Total Progression Points is the number of kills with the rank difference multiplier for each kill added together. You can refer to the table in the Wiki that was mentioned earlier. Basically as Deadly rank, you get 1.25 progression points for killing an Elite ship, 1.00 for killing a Deadly ship, 0.75 for Dangerous, 0.50 for Master, and 0.25 for Expert.
The next three sections of the spreadsheet are running calculations to see how well CMDR Monsen’s data matches up with my data when assuming different combat ranks for Thargoid scouts. Red numbers are outside the game’s rounding and INTEGER display functions and indicate that the assumed scout rank is incorrect.
The final section of the spreadsheet is my totals for how many ship kills of each combat rank are needed to progress from 0% Deadly to Elite.
Conclusions
You need exactly 2,579 Thargoid scout kills to progress from 0% Deadly to Elite. As mentioned earlier, this may be slightly off because of the Berserker and Regenerator kills, but I doubt it. This equates to 25.79 kills per percentage point, which is why most of the Kill Difference numbers are 26, with the occasional 25 every so often to account for rounding.
The game displays the percentage by removing all decimal places after the whole number, and won’t change until the next whole number is reached, similar to an INTEGER function. The variances in my percentages are simply a result of the way I’m calculating kills, and not progression points. On Xbox at least, you can keep exact track of what total turns over your percentage number as there doesn’t seem to be any delay, as if the calculation is kept on the client side, not the server side.
Thargoid scouts do not have a standard combat rank like human ships do. When you’re at Deadly rank they appear to have a multiplier of 0.833333, which is above a Dangerous kill, but below a Deadly kill. When assuming that the scouts are either Deadly or Dangerous rank CMDR Monsen’s numbers do not make sense, and fall far outside any normal rounding or display function that I can think the game might use. I picked 0.833333 and not .83 or .85 or .86 which arguably might fit CMDR Monsen’s data a tiny bit better because human brains in meetings don’t normally work that way. People are much more likely to say “nerf the scout progression point award by a third” than to say “nerf the scout progression point award by 31%” or “32%” or “34%.” 0.833333 is two-thirds of 1.25, the multiplier where the scouts used to be before the nerf. It also has the lowest number of divergences from my kill data as well.
The total 2,579 Thargoid Scout kills equates to 2,150 total progression points, or 1,720 Elite ship kills. Based on his very small sample size, CMDR Monsen and the Wiki were remarkably close to these numbers with 2,225 total progression points, and 1,780 Elite ship kills. Good news, the actual grind is a bit shorter than the Wiki says.
The note in the Wiki about “2,400 kills based on a more average distribution of ships” really has no basis in fact. This is because while yes, we can run a standard deviation on this data based on nine total ship ranks, this would be neglecting the fact that as your rank increases the game says “you are more likely to encounter pilots of higher rank.” We don’t know how that mechanic works, and for now, is completely outside this analysis. Assuming that while you are Deadly rank you can no longer encounter any NPC ship that is below Expert rank is again, pure conjecture at this point, and even if it were so, we have no way of knowing if the remaining five ranks have an equal chance of being encountered, or if it is based on some other calculation. CMDR Monsen’s data gives a small starting point for this analysis, but again, is outside the scope of this one.
The note in the Wiki about “ending scouts dominance of the Combat rank meta” is also a moot point based on the above observation about the distribution of NPC ranks you might encounter as Deadly rank. With a multiplier of 0.833333, that puts them above the next lower rank of Dangerous as far as awarding progression points. Again, not knowing how the rank encounter mechanic works, we cannot be sure that scouts aren’t still the fastest way on a per kill basis to accrue combat rank. Other metrics such as the time it takes to make a kill as well as how much time it takes to rearm or repair since caustic damage is involved also come in to play when comparing this method to things such as CZs, Res sites, installation mission spawns, compromised nav beacons, etc. It is far slower than it was before the nerf, but that doesn't mean there is data showing it still isn't the fastest way to progress.
To sum up, I hope this has been interesting. I also welcome input and questions. If I’ve made errors in the calculations, please let me know, I’m anxious to get other eyes on this to see if things can get refined even further. If you made it this far, you’re just as big a nerd as I am.
CMDR Jorval
Reading the Wiki you are directed to several sources for information. I always prefer to get my information directly from the source rather than just taking the Wiki for granted so I read the forum posts that were linked, and I read the information gathered by CMDR Remy Marten about his kills while Deadly rank. I came across some very interesting information there but found some if to be very incomplete, based on small sample sizes, or just missing. That’s when I decided to document my journey from Deadly to Elite and then analyze my results afterward.
WARNING: There will be math in this.
TL;DR: The Wiki is both correct and incorrect, Thargoid scouts don’t have a normal combat rank, and the combat grind to Elite is a little shorter than the Wiki says.
Wiki Page Information
Combat
Combat is one of the three archetypal pilot roles recognized by the Pilots Federation. Combat encompasses multiple sub-roles, such as Assassin, Bounty Hunter, Mercenary, and Pirate. Increasing Combat rank requires destroying other ships, and defeating pilots with higher Combat ranks rewards a...
elite-dangerous.fandom.com
The first piece of information gathered from the Wiki is the table outlining the progression points given for each kill based on the relative ranks of the pilot and the target. This table is supposedly linked to a Dev Post by Brett on July 31, 2015. He attached an image to this post which is unfortunately no longer available, but my assumption is that the table came directly from his image and is correct when dealing with my particular situation.
Answers from the Devs #3
Hi everyone, Over the past two weeks, we've put up "Answers from the devs" discussions, which looked at some of your commonly asked questions. We asked you on the thread to tell us what else you would like to ask, and we would be sure to follow up. Without further delay, here is our third...
The caveat to my above statement about the table is the statement in the Odyssey release notes that every kill will garner some amount of progression points, regardless of relative rank. This a doesn't affect my situation since I was killing only one type of enemy without a rank, but it can affect future data sets compiled by other experiments.
Patch Notes - Elite Dangerous: Odyssey Patch Notes
Greetings Commanders. As you may be aware, all servers are now offline as we power up our engines in preparation to launch of Elite Dangerous: Odyssey, our largest release to date. Your feedback during the Elite Dangerous: Odyssey Alpha has been invaluable in shaping and improving what you...
The next piece of information is that Thargoid scouts are not combat rank Elite. This is linked to a post by Bruce G on December 8, 2020 where he says that scouts will no longer be worth as many progression points as they were previously. It’s important to note that in further posts in the thread he directly refuses to tell us how much less they will be worth. This means we do not know how much the progression got nerfed, and anyone saying “scouts are Dangerous rank” is just speculating.
ANNOUNCEMENT - Game Balancing Pt.3
Greetings Commanders, Welcome to the third and final set of game balancing changes this side of 2021. In the new year, we'll turn our attention to other aspects of the game that you've raised in your suggestions and feedback. As promised, we're making some further balancing changes to other...
The last piece of information comes from a linked spreadsheet by CMDR Remy Monsen which has some recorded data concerning some of his kills during his progression, and here’s where we’re going to focus for a bit. Let’s look at some information contained in his data before we get more into it later.
Elite XP.xlsx
onedrive.live.com
First, he states that there is a delay between the time he makes a kill and the time when the displayed percentage is updated in the right panel. Next, his data is confined to a range of ten percentage point increases from 15% to 24% Deadly. Next, the spreadsheet is using the AVERAGE function to normalize the individual kills across that ten percentage point range. Last, the spreadsheet uses that averaged data to do one multiplication calculation to come up with the final numbers about the total experience required to progress from 0% Deadly to Elite.
We will come back to CMDR Monsen’s data later, and plug it into the results I have obtained and you will see a much more accurate interpretation of his data and how it fits in with mine.
Data Gathering Method
I killed only Thargoid scouts during the entire progression from 0% Deadly to Elite. No other kills of any type were performed. There was a time when I went into a threat level 5 Non-Human Signal Source and killed a group of eight scouts which included four Marauder, two Regenerator and two Berserker variants, but aside from that, all of the kills were Marauder variant scouts. I mention this because there is a possibility that either Berserkers, or Regenerators, or both may still be a higher combat rank than Marauders, and this may affect my numbers. This is doubtful, but I have to acknowledge the possibility.
From 0% to 60% I took screenshots of my right panel and left panel only intermittently. From 60% on, I took screenshots every time I increased a percentage point. Almost all of the bounty totals listed are immediately after the percentage point increased. There are a few in there where I forgot where I was in my count and missed the exact increase. That will be explained later.
I played the entire run on Xbox Series X, in Horizons obviously. I only mention this because CMDR Monsen mentioned a delay in updating the percentage on his right panel, and that does not exist on Xbox. I have multiple video recordings where I can reduce a scout to 0% health and when the death sound starts, I can open the right panel fast enough to actually watch the percentage point increase right after the explosion sound and the bounty is awarded. If there actually is a delay in updating the percentage on PC and/or Playstation, and there isn’t on Xbox, this opens up a whole new set of discussions about how the platforms communicate to the servers based on what each platform controls inside each instance, which is for another post.
Raw Data
Elite
Sheet 1 Thargoid Scout Kill Statistics,Compiled by:,CMDR Jorval,Nov. 2021 Displayed Percentage,5%,10.0%,19%,23%,29%,33%,35%,39%,43%,47%,48%,49%,50.0%,54%,60.0%,61%,62%,63%,64% Displayed Bounties,10,560,000,22,400,000,40,640,000,49,280,000,60,160,000,67,520,000,71,680,000,80,000,000,89,600,000,96...
Data Analysis
The very first thing to realize when analyzing the data is that we do not know what the combat rank of any Thargoid is. There is nothing relating to this that is displayed by any scan that can be executed on a Thargoid, and as far as I know no Developer has ever stated exactly where Thargoids fall, quite the opposite in fact. This means we can only go so far with our data before we have to compare it to an outside source.
The next thing to realize is that the game displays a whole percentage number, and we have no idea how it rounds that number. It could be using an INT function where it discards all numbers after the decimal place and only displays the base percentage until it rolls over to the next higher percentage, or it could be rounding it up or down around a certain decimal place. We don’t know at the start.
Looking at the data we can start explaining the spreadsheet.
Displayed Percentage is obvious, that is what was displayed in the right panel in my screenshots.
Displayed Bounties is also obvious, that is the credit amount displayed in my left panel in my screenshots.
Total Bounties is the displayed bounties plus 160,000 credits for the two additional scouts I killed after I received the message that I had reached 0% Deadly in-game. I know this is accurate because I have video of me reaching Elite and getting the message displayed about Elite level as soon as the percentage ticked up to 100%, so I know there is no delay between getting the kill for 0% Deadly and getting the message saying I had progressed from Dangerous to Deadly.
Scout Kills is the total bounty number divided by the reward for each scout kill, which is always 80,000 credits, regardless of type. This allowed me to keep an exact count of scout kills during the progression.
Bounty Difference and Kill Difference are the difference in kills and bounties from the last entry to the current entry.
Actual Percentage is the scout kills divided by the total number of scout kills needed to progress to Elite.
Total Scout Kills -1 and Percentage Before Kill are a check calculation. As I mentioned, for a lot of the percentages at 60% and above, the number of Total Kills is immediately after the percentage changed, so knowing what the actual percentage was before it changed can help us figure out the rounding the game does to get to the displayed percentage.
The next four sections of the spreadsheet are running calculations based on assuming a combat rank for the Thargoid scouts, running a calculation to see how many NPC kills at Deadly rank this would be, rounding that to a whole number and then calculating that back down to scout kills and seeing how well that number matches with my actual number. Red numbers are calculated scout kills that do not match mine. The lower the number of divergences, the better our assumption is about what rank the scouts are.
Assumed Scout Level Multiplier is the number that my kills would get multiplied by to calculate progression points if the scout were that combat rank.
Equivalent Deadly Kills is how many Deadly rank ships would have to be killed to equal the number of scout kills I had at that level.
Equivalent Rounded Up is the equivalent Deadly kills rounded up to the nearest whole number. This is because you can’t kill a partial ship.
Equivalent Scout Kills is taking the rounded Deadly ship kill number and turning it back into a number of scout kills, rounded down, because again, you can’t kill a partial scout. The fewer number of divergences from the scout kill number is better.
Equivalent Percentage is taking the equivalent number of scout kills and dividing it by the total number of equivalent scout kills to get a percentage. It will differ from the actual percentage number because of the rounding up and down that the game does when it converts from kills to progression points.
Assumed Scout Level Between is a multiplier picked so as to place each scout somewhere between Dangerous and Deadly equivalent combat rank. This will become clearer when running the calculations around CMDR Monsen’s data.
The next section is a copy of CMDR Remy Monsen’s data, converted into my naming conventions. The first area is self-explanatory.
Total Progression Points is the number of kills with the rank difference multiplier for each kill added together. You can refer to the table in the Wiki that was mentioned earlier. Basically as Deadly rank, you get 1.25 progression points for killing an Elite ship, 1.00 for killing a Deadly ship, 0.75 for Dangerous, 0.50 for Master, and 0.25 for Expert.
The next three sections of the spreadsheet are running calculations to see how well CMDR Monsen’s data matches up with my data when assuming different combat ranks for Thargoid scouts. Red numbers are outside the game’s rounding and INTEGER display functions and indicate that the assumed scout rank is incorrect.
The final section of the spreadsheet is my totals for how many ship kills of each combat rank are needed to progress from 0% Deadly to Elite.
Conclusions
You need exactly 2,579 Thargoid scout kills to progress from 0% Deadly to Elite. As mentioned earlier, this may be slightly off because of the Berserker and Regenerator kills, but I doubt it. This equates to 25.79 kills per percentage point, which is why most of the Kill Difference numbers are 26, with the occasional 25 every so often to account for rounding.
The game displays the percentage by removing all decimal places after the whole number, and won’t change until the next whole number is reached, similar to an INTEGER function. The variances in my percentages are simply a result of the way I’m calculating kills, and not progression points. On Xbox at least, you can keep exact track of what total turns over your percentage number as there doesn’t seem to be any delay, as if the calculation is kept on the client side, not the server side.
Thargoid scouts do not have a standard combat rank like human ships do. When you’re at Deadly rank they appear to have a multiplier of 0.833333, which is above a Dangerous kill, but below a Deadly kill. When assuming that the scouts are either Deadly or Dangerous rank CMDR Monsen’s numbers do not make sense, and fall far outside any normal rounding or display function that I can think the game might use. I picked 0.833333 and not .83 or .85 or .86 which arguably might fit CMDR Monsen’s data a tiny bit better because human brains in meetings don’t normally work that way. People are much more likely to say “nerf the scout progression point award by a third” than to say “nerf the scout progression point award by 31%” or “32%” or “34%.” 0.833333 is two-thirds of 1.25, the multiplier where the scouts used to be before the nerf. It also has the lowest number of divergences from my kill data as well.
The total 2,579 Thargoid Scout kills equates to 2,150 total progression points, or 1,720 Elite ship kills. Based on his very small sample size, CMDR Monsen and the Wiki were remarkably close to these numbers with 2,225 total progression points, and 1,780 Elite ship kills. Good news, the actual grind is a bit shorter than the Wiki says.
The note in the Wiki about “2,400 kills based on a more average distribution of ships” really has no basis in fact. This is because while yes, we can run a standard deviation on this data based on nine total ship ranks, this would be neglecting the fact that as your rank increases the game says “you are more likely to encounter pilots of higher rank.” We don’t know how that mechanic works, and for now, is completely outside this analysis. Assuming that while you are Deadly rank you can no longer encounter any NPC ship that is below Expert rank is again, pure conjecture at this point, and even if it were so, we have no way of knowing if the remaining five ranks have an equal chance of being encountered, or if it is based on some other calculation. CMDR Monsen’s data gives a small starting point for this analysis, but again, is outside the scope of this one.
The note in the Wiki about “ending scouts dominance of the Combat rank meta” is also a moot point based on the above observation about the distribution of NPC ranks you might encounter as Deadly rank. With a multiplier of 0.833333, that puts them above the next lower rank of Dangerous as far as awarding progression points. Again, not knowing how the rank encounter mechanic works, we cannot be sure that scouts aren’t still the fastest way on a per kill basis to accrue combat rank. Other metrics such as the time it takes to make a kill as well as how much time it takes to rearm or repair since caustic damage is involved also come in to play when comparing this method to things such as CZs, Res sites, installation mission spawns, compromised nav beacons, etc. It is far slower than it was before the nerf, but that doesn't mean there is data showing it still isn't the fastest way to progress.
To sum up, I hope this has been interesting. I also welcome input and questions. If I’ve made errors in the calculations, please let me know, I’m anxious to get other eyes on this to see if things can get refined even further. If you made it this far, you’re just as big a nerd as I am.
CMDR Jorval
Last edited by a moderator:
